


C/Fe one shots

by EarthGirl



Category: Robot Series - Isaac Asimov
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 04:05:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7084957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthGirl/pseuds/EarthGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short, unconnected fics written for specific prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Types of kisses- “Good morning” kiss

Elijah felt the warmness of the body wrapped around his, and the sensation of safety from being in that semi-enclosure, before he woke up enough to remember what they meant. He smiled when the memory came, and opened his eyes half hoping to be lucky enough to see Daneel still “asleep”, and verify what kind of effect low energy mode had on his partner’s handsome features.

His first sight on the morning turned out to be, instead, a sweet smile and bright blue eyes staring lovingly at him. He had no wish to complain.

“Good morning” he mumbled, sleepily. “Did you sleep at all?”

“Good morning, Elijah. I did, but only for four hours. As I told you last night, even when my brain does require sleep I do not need to do it for long.”

“What time is it?”

“Nine am” Daneel replied, without looking at the clock. Elijah nodded.

“So you’ve been awake in bed for five hours? Didn’t you get bored?”

“No, of course not.” Alarm passed by the robot’s beautiful face. “Was it impolite of me? I thought I should be here when you woke, but perhaps…”

“No!” said Elijah, quickly. “That is not what I meant. I just… Thank you, but you didn’t have to. If there was anything that you had rather been doing than…” he shivered in embarrassment “hear me snore, or say nonsense in my sleep, or…”

Daneel gently shook his head on a negative, and leaned forward. Understanding his intent, Elijah smiled before closing the distance and pressing their lips together.

“I consider myself very lucky to get to do those things” said Daneel, gently, as they parted. “Until it actually happened, I never really believed I could ever have a chance to experience this level of intimacy.”

Relaxing, Elijah raised a hand and tenderly caressed Daneel’s face.

“I’m the lucky one.”


	2. Types of kisses- "Shy" kiss

He was faintly horrified to realize that he would be ready to risk his life for a robot. No, not for a robot. For Daneel.

Daneel, who was now staring at him with shock and a hint of horror in his clear eyes.

“It is pleasant to know that you care so much for my wellbeing, Partner Elijah, but please never say anything like that again. The possibility of you losing your existence to protect mine is too painful for me to consider. You are too important.”

Elijah cursed at himself for not realizing the negative First Law implications of his words before he spoke. But he had meant what he’d said, and even accounting for the Laws of Robotics, he could not imagine that the thought of his death could be more painful to Daneel than the thought of Daneel’s was to him.

“I am sorry, Daneel. I did not mean to hurt you, and perhaps I should not have said that aloud, but I felt I had to. I do not want you risking yourself on my behalf, and although I know you can’t understand this, I cannot agree with the First Law. Knowing you has made me realize that a robot’s life can be just as valuable as a human’s, or even more. I understand you have to follow your programming, but please be careful. You may not believe it, but please trust me when I say that your existence is very precious.”

As Elijah spoke, Daneel’s eyes flickered towards the floor, and remained fixated there when he replied in a voice so low that Elijah had to move closer in order to hear him.

“Thank you, Elijah. Although you are correct and I cannot understand or agree with your words, it is extremely pleasant to know that you value my existence so. And…” he hesitated, and moved his neck to turn his entire face down, as if to conceal his eyes from Elijah’s even more completely. “I believe you are under a misconception. I do not value your life so highly simply because you are a human and I am a robot. Elijah, your life… Is more valuable to me than any other human’s. This is difficult for me to say, but…”

Elijah had never seen Daneel so hesitant. Gently, he stepped closer to the robot and moved his fingers in what he hoped was a soothing caress over the hand he was holding.

“You can tell me anything you want to, my friend.”

“Like I said earlier, Elijah, the sight of you makes me feel pleasure of several types that I do not experience under any other circumstances. I have spoken to other robots, read all the notes I could find about myself, and helped Dr. Fastolfe to build Jander, but still I could not find any explanation for my reactions towards you. And yet, the happiness I feel when we are together, the easiness with which my thoughts flow in your presence, the perceived lack of gravity, and, more recently,” Daneel’s eyes flickered quickly towards their joined hands before returning, as if reflexively, towards the floor, “even a sort of physical pleasure unique to your touch, are the strongest, most powerful reactions I have ever experienced.”

Elijah was speechless. His face felt as if it was burning, his heartbeat was almost audible, and he nearly pulled his hand away from Daneel’s, out of unwillingness to allow the robot to feel how he was suddenly sweating, before he realized that such a gesture might be interpreted as a refusal.

Refusal? Why had he thought of this word? Daneel had not offered him anything, he was a robot, and the way he perceived the world was much different from Elijah’s. Certainly he could not mean what he sounded like he meant, what any human who made such a speech would mean. Elijah was letting his imagination run too wildly, he must not allow his desires to color his perception of reality, and…

“Elijah, what I am trying to say is… That although I do not know if I can mean it in a human sense, I believe I am in love with you.”

Oh.

It was Elijah’s eyes’ turn to fixate their gaze on the floor. He wanted to look up, to look for signs of sincerity on Daneel’s face, but he was unable to.

“D-do you really mean that?” he asked, after a long pause during which he felt as if he was in danger of having his heart beat its way out of his chest.

“I do. Elijah, I am sorry if this ruins our frien…”

“It doesn’t!” the sentence was out of his mouth before he even realized he had said it. “Daneel, the truth….” His voice seemed to get stuck on his throat. He gulped, and tried again. “The truth is that I am in love with you too. I have been trying to conceal that even from myself, because I thought that you couldn’t reciprocate, and I didn’t want to risk accidentally giving myself away, since I feared that if I did, the Laws might make you feel obligated to do something you didn’t want to.”

Still staring at the floor, Elijah felt, rather than saw, Daneel slowly raise his head and look directly at him.

“Elijah,” he said in a soft, tremulous voice, “I have no previous experience with romance, not even indirectly, as I don’t believe I would use that word to describe any relationships I have witnessed in Aurora. So I cannot know to which extent the bookfilms I’ve viewed on the subject are true to reality, but I assure you that none of them contained anything, at least in the early stages of a romantic relationship, that I wouldn’t be extremely glad to experience with you.”

Elijah forced his eyes to look up. His face still felt as if it was burning, and he did not like to think of how red it must be looking, but he supposed he should take comfort on the fact that Daneel looked as if he would be blushing too if that were possible for a robot.

“I… I don’t know what kind of stories you’ve viewed. But in real life, this is the moment in which I ask if I can kiss you.”

Daneel’s lips quirked upwards in the slightest grin as he nodded. Elijah closed his eyes, leaned forward, and kissed him.

It was short, sweet, and barely lasted two seconds, as he dared not risk moving too fast, and didn’t even know if a kiss would be capable of producing that “physical pleasure" (Jehoshaphat, how much hotter could his face get?!?) Daneel had spoken of. As he pulled his mouth away, he simultaneously leaned the top of his head forward, and was delighted when Daneel’s forehead met his halfway. Too overwhelmed by a mixture of embarrassment and joy, he kept his eyes closed for several seconds more. When he finally opened them, he saw that Daneel’s were still closed, and the robot’s mouth was forming the broadest smile he had ever seen on Daneel’s face. He felt his own rare large grin expand even more at the sight.

Daneel’s eyes opened, and neither of them could help shyly gazing down for a second again, before at last allowing their eyes to meet and fully share the ecstasy of the moment. For a long moment they did nothing but look into each other’s eyes, letting their gazes communicate what they felt they could not put in words, until Daneel broke the silent at last.

“Elijah, would you please kiss me again?”


	3. Types of kisses- "Sad" kiss

Elijah stopped before the door and sighed, attempting to gather courage to open it. He never thought the day might come in which he would not be running towards the opportunity to see Daneel. But how could he go through that door and watch the expectation he knew must be in his partner’s face change into disappointment the moment he saw him? For while Daneel had come to ask him a question, Elijah knew it wouldn’t be necessary for him to do so. The answer was certainly clear on Elijah’s face.

Closing his eyes, he gathered courage, took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped through it.

Daneel was standing a few feet away, and as Elijah had feared, a shadow seemed to appear over his gentle eyes as soon as they looked at each other.

“They didn’t allow it?”

Elijah closed the door behind him and approached Daneel slowly, futilely attempting to delay the moment of his answer.

“I am sorry, Daneel. They didn’t. It was hard work, and it took months of arguing, but I eventually convinced Bentley to agree. But… Not the rest of them.”

Daneel pulled him into a hug.

“I suppose it was to be expected, Elijah. They’ve spent their lives fearing robots, and perhaps it was too much to ask them to accept having one in their midst while they attempt to start a society free of any form of robotic labor.”

Although Daneel’s voice struggled to sound calm, there was a hint of desperateness in the strength with which he was holding Elijah that betrayed the depth of his disappointment.

“But I told them what we had agreed on. You wouldn’t do anything in which you are inherently more productive than human beings. It wouldn’t affect the intended development of the colony. Jehoshaphat, I started this project, they should know I wouldn’t suggest anything that might endanger it!”

Daneel’s fingers tangled themselves gently on Elijah’s hair, and the robot attempted to say something, but he could no longer make his voice sound firm. After a moment, he tried again.

“This isn’t goodbye. Dr. Fastolfe has promised to help us to find ways to see each other periodically.”

“Yes, I know. Like now. Stolen moments aboard frowned upon spaceships. I suppose I should be grateful we’ll have at least that, but Jehoshaphat, Daneel, I wanted…”

“I know. Me too.”

Elijah wondered if Daneel had interrupted him because he didn’t want to hear a list of all that they had foolishly dared to hope for, and that had now been snatched away forever. Long moments spent together, without worrying about when their time would end. Lazy evenings cuddling in the couch, watching holoshows, reading to each other, or just talking, without mysteries, without deadlines, without a care in the world. Daneel sitting with the family as an equal, free, for as long as Elijah lived, of the humiliation of a separate niche from which he was not supposed to talk unless addressed first. Daneel bringing him soup in bed when he was sick, and he learning to help Daneel with routine maintenance. Daneel staring curiously as Elijah’s oldest grandchild grabbed his finger on a tiny hand. Decades of being constantly together, a marriage, daily life lived through those principles Daneel had told him long ago. C/Fe. Neither one nor the other, but a mixture of the two, without priority. That was what they had wished for, dared to hope for, and had ultimately lost.

The kiss that followed was not their first. But it was the first to taste of Elijah’s tears.


	4. The way you said "I love you"- In a way I can't return

“Nevertheless, bound by friendship. Do not, for your own sake, test the force of our…”

There was a short pause as the actor turned his gaze from the woman across the desk to the man halfway across the stage. He widened his eyes slightly, to convey the impression of an epiphany, and his voice softened as he finished in a tone of pleasant surprise.

“…love.”

The audience gasped in delight. Most thought that it would be impolite to cheer in the middle of a scene, but a group of teenagers on the first row had no such qualms. “Finally!” said one, while others made nonsensical loud sounds of approval. All of them were clapping, and soon the rest of the audience joined them. The four actors on the stage stood still in their positions, patiently waiting for the applause to die down. The two leads, who had been cast as much for their chemistry together as for their individual talent, stared intensely into each other’s eyes, both looking as if their lives had just changed forever.

Somewhere, in another plane of existence, the soul of the real Elijah Baley was shaking.

It had been morbid curiosity that had initially led him to watch the rehearsals for this play. After all, watching fictional representations of his life had never done him any good. While he was alive, the dreadful hyperwave drama about the events in Solaria had made his life hell, and the one that had been made about him in Baleyworld soon after his death had managed to be even worse. When he saw that a theatre group in one of the newest colonies was putting on a play about his relationship with Daneel, his natural reaction had been to wish he could haunt the place until they gave up.

Since that was impossible, he had decided to ignore the play’s existence, but that resolve had not lasted. During the second day of the group’s work he had not resisted peeking at their rehearsal, and the surprise had been a most pleasant one. These people _cared_ about the story, and were doing their best to portray it respectfully. He had expected ridicule, to watch the most important moments of his life and the deepest emotions he had ever experienced be distorted and mocked, and instead he found himself understood by strangers in a level he had long given up hoping for.

Even so, he had believed that could not last. This rare group of people might respect and feel awed by his and Daneel’s feelings for each other, but he had been certain their audiences wouldn’t. His affection for the group made him decide to watch the play’s opening night, but he had been terrified of the laughter and yells of indignation he was certain would fill the theatre.

Instead, he was now facing a full house that followed the story with eyes shining with admiration and empathy. He felt pleasantly overwhelmed in a way he had never felt before (except in Daneel’s presence, of course). It had taken one thousand years, but at last, _at last_ , people understood.

But happy as he was, there was still one thought disturbing the perfection of the moment, and causing part of him to feel frustrated and hurt: the thought that these people would not even know the story if it hadn’t been for Daneel’s efforts.

Elijah’s first worry in the afterlife had been the same as his last as a living man: to ensure Daneel was safe. His conscience, still unused to its new form and abilities, had clumsily searched in desperation for a view of his old house, and he had been relieved beyond expression when he found it and saw that, although disturbed, Daneel was still alive. In time, Elijah had learned to observe more than one event in the world of the living at once, so that he could keep an eye in Baleyworld and watch interesting events like this play. But from the moment he died, his gaze had never, not even for a second, left Daneel. Elijah was determined to be with him always, to spend as many centuries, or millennia, as needed watching over him, and trying to communicate with him even if for only a moment, to let him know that Elijah approved of his actions, that he loved him desperately, and that they would be together again someday.

But watching Daneel’s life had been staggering. No, it hadn’t been, it _still_ was, and would probably always be. From the second Daneel left his dying room, Elijah had been shocked to realize, he had not taken a single meaningful action that had not been a deep, open, clear declaration of their love. Elijah felt touched, flattered, and more confused than he could ever explain, and to see that others, strangers, were understanding the meaning of those actions, that those to whom Daneel spoke and told their story were listening to him and taking the tale as a symbol of _hope_ , made him wish he was still physically capable of crying.

Part of him wished to cry for reasons that were far from being pleasant.

In his last decades of life, he had done his best to transform his own life into a continuous love declaration to Daneel as well. He spoke of their feelings openly in Baleyworld. He named his oldest grandchild after him (and when people were angry, he named the second Giskard to make sure to drive home the point that robots were people, and some of them were wonderful people more than worthy of the honor of having cherished children named after them. But the planet’s population had not understood even that). He called for Daneel on his deathbed, and he had specifically asked Bentley to let the truth about his feelings be known if he did really end up writing a biography of him.

Ben had ignored him. All of them had ignored him. His words, his actions, his deepest feelings had been thrown aside like a shameful secret, and although he was now happy to see them being brought to light and celebrated, it hurt him to know that he had had no part in making sure that the tale was spread.

Although Daneel was not in the theater at that moment, that play, too, was a declaration from him to Elijah. Ensuring others know about your feelings, that others feel inspired by your story and do not let it die… How powerful of a declaration was that?

Elijah had told Daneel he loved him many times, in many different ways, and he was determined to tell him many, many more. Once Daneel finally allowed himself to rest, Elijah fully planned to spend the rest of eternity telling him how much he loves him.

But this form of declaration? Succeeding at letting others know how strong their love is, and convincing them of its importance, to the point in which they talk about it, draw hope from it, bond over sharing it, crying over it, cheering on it, even when, as far as they knew, neither Elijah nor Daneel were in the room?

That was a way of saying “I love you” that Elijah could never return.


	5. The way you said "I love you"- As a goodbye

It was five in the morning when a large group of tourists arrived at Cinna’s major spaceport. Some of them were dragging their luggage, some walked slowly, and some were in the company of awe-struck children who had never been to a spaceport before and forgot to move while staring at the novelty. As a result, the group’s entrance took a relatively long time, during which the doors remained open, letting the chill air into the building. On a chair across the hall, Elijah Baley shivered with cold and huddled closer to Daneel, who was glad to tighten the grasp of the protective arm he had around his chilly husband.

“Is it always this cold at this hour?” asked Elijah, whose schedule during the year they had spent in Cinna allowed him to wake up no earlier than six am.

“No, today’s temperature is rather exceptional, even for winter.”

“Of course. On the one day I had to wake up at half past three am” he muttered, grumpily, against Daneel’s chest. Daneel smiled gently at him, and rubbed his back to try to help him feel warmer. Elijah relaxed into the touch, and was silent for a few minutes. Then, seeing the announcement that his ship had landed, he took Daneel’s hand in his.

“I’ll miss you this month.”

“I’ll miss you too. But we will be within messaging range and communicate every night, will we not?”

“I know.” He sighed and forced himself to pull away from the comforting embrace, so that he could look into Daneel’s eyes. “And, besides,” he said, with a smile, “it is for a good cause.”

Daneel’s eyes shone, and he leaned forward to kiss him.

The cause for their temporary separation was indeed excellent. A new area of the galaxy had just begun to be explored, and rich mines had been found in two different systems. If they hurried, each to one location, they might be able to acquire large quantities of certain rare materials that were essential to something they had been eager to do for years. If they traveled together, they might miss out in this opportunity, and it might take them over a decade to acquire all that they needed. If this worked out, however, there was a very strong chance they might start building their child on the next spring.

The passengers of Elijah’s ship were called, and the two of them stood up. Daneel walked him to the gate, and they took a moment to share another kiss.

“I love you” they said upon parting, almost in unison, and then both smiled, a silly, ridiculously content smile that made the people passing them roll their eyes.

Then, letting go of Daneel’s hands, Elijah entered the ship, focusing on the thought that by this time next year they might be at the spaceport again with a precious new companion, ready to take her on her first family vacation.


End file.
